Unity has publically apologized to its community and announced new policy changes for its runtime fee plans.
The update after its last policy changes received negative backlash and threats from developers to leave the engine altogether.
“I want to start with this: I am sorry,” Unity Create lead Marc Whitten said. “We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy.”
As far as the new policy changes, Unity is keeping the Unity Personal plan free and won’t include a runtime fee for games built on the plan. The revenue cap will be increased from $100,000 to $200,000 with the plan and the “Made with Unity” splash screen requirement will be removed.
“No game with less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will be subject to the fee,” he said.
READ MORE: Unity Apologises For ‘Confusion and Angst’, Prepares Update
As far as those on Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise plans, the runtime fee policy will “only apply beginning with the next LTS version of Unity shipping in 2024 and beyond.”
“Your games that are currently shipped and the projects you are currently working on will not be included – unless you choose to upgrade them to this new version of Unity,” Whitten writes. “We will make sure that you can stay on the terms applicable for the version of Unity editor you are using – as long as you keep using that version.“
Lastly, for those that are subject to the runtime fee, Unity is now giving developers a choice. They can either choose a 2.5% revenue share or the “calculated amount based on the “calculated amount based on the number of new people engaging with your game each month”.
What do you think of Unity’s apology and updates to the runtime fee policy it announced last week?
